Micro Arcade gaming – Arcadie Arcade

Well, it’s been a few weeks now since receiving the awesome(ness) custom port of Mame for my Arcadie-Arcade and have been thorougly enjoying testing it out with the creme of all those arcade classics. The Arcadie-Arcade is miniature arcade cabinet designed to be used with a iPhone or iPod Touch. Its uses pressure sensors on the bottom half of the screen for the joystick and two mini arcade buttons leaving the top half of screen to display the game. Fun times indeed, especially as I’ve been lucky enough to beta test this yet to be released Mame port.

So far so its been all good and all of the rom images I’ve tested so far work just as well as if using iMame or Mame4All using Set 37b7. O.k with only two buttons, you might be a little restricted when playing certain games like button-fest Street Fighter II (although it’s suprising how far you can get with just one kick and one punch button) but pretty much all of the old school classics that appeal to me are those that only require one or two buttons. Having anymore buttons on the Arcadie would be a disaster!
Once you have the app installed and a collection of zipped rom images transferred the Rom Folder on your iPhone (I did this via sideloading with the iExplorer desktop client), you launch Mame, scanthe rom folder and with any luck, you should have a nice games list.

You can scroll through games list one by one by moving the joystick up or down or alternatively via left and right to jump through the list more quickly. Pressing button ‘B’ on the Arcadie launches the game and the fun begins.

Along the bottom of the screen of four useful touchscreen buttons which remain on screen during the game. They are – Exit (to main menu), Options, Coin and Start. The options button brings up a full screen menu and so it’s probably best not to access this whilst your iPhone is in the Arcadie case because you won’t be able to see the rest of the screen. To be honest, once you’ve configured the emulator options to how you like them, I doubt you’d need to go into this menu again.

That’s about all there is to it really and even if you’re not familiar with Mame, I don’t think that navigating around and running a game is going to cause you too much difficulty. Oh and btw, bothHorizontal and Vertical games are supported…and if you’re thinking that vertical games won’t be playable of such a tiny portion of the screen..believe me they play just fine.

At the moment they’re no release information for this port particular of Mame. Will it pass Apple stringent views on emulation or will it be a Cydia store app only? Who knows but in the meantime, if you happen to have an iPhone or iPod (3rd Gen), do yourself a favour and treat yourself to an Arcadie Arcade machine whilst they’re available. Even if you can’t play Mame on it yet, the free arcade inspired games on the app store will bring a little bit of classic gaming to your desktop….as well as nods of approval from fellow classic gamers 🙂

I brought mine from Firebox and I’m seriously thinking about getting another one so I can have a go at some creating some custom replacement artwork for the side panels.

Here’s a few pictures of mine running a few games – thanks to the Arcade Flyer website for the backdrops!

Even the almighty Starwars (which is almost unplayable without analogue controls) gives you goosebumps when see it playing on a tiny arcade 🙂

I can't have a gaming session without including my all time favourite - Phoenix
 Another classic shooter - Scramble.  Even with the tiny digital controls, it's surprising how well it drives that famous red motor. I struggle with the moves but it is possible to pull of the odd Hurricane kick and Shoryuken uppercut. 
 Back to the classics one last time.